The brave have not frequently wept over such a victim as Sombrieul.
Whether the experiment of repelling those machinations which warred against all established order, and all sanctioned usage, by a novel, and unnatural opposition, is attributable to any other cause, than that of a misjudging principle, must be decided by Him, whose mighty hand suspended the balance of the battle, and whose eye can, at a glance, pierce through the labyrinth of human obliquity, however compact, shaded, or concealed. If the late minister is chargeable with a prolongation of the war, if he is responsible for having misplaced his confidence, and if brave men have perished by the fatal delusion, he will find some, if not ample consolation, in reflecting, that by his vigilance, and vigour, he has saved his country from the miseries of a revolutionary frenzy, which has rendered, even our enemies, the objects of our sympathy, and compassion.
Such is the narrowness of our nature, that we know not how adequately to appreciate our preservation from an intercepted evil: it is indistinctly seen, like a distant object. The calamity must touch before its powers and magnitude can be estimated. The flames of the neighbouring pile, must stop at our very doors, before our gratitude becomes animated with its highest energies. If Providence were to unfold to us all the horrours which we have escaped; if all the blood which would have followed the assassin's dagger were to roll in reeking streams before us; if the full display of irreligion, flight, massacre, confiscation, imprisonment and famine, which would have graced a revolutionary triumph in these realms, were to be unbarred to our view, how should we recoil from the ghastly spectacle! With what emotions of admiration and esteem should we bend before the man, whose illumined mind and dignified resolution protected us from such fell perdition, and confined the ravages of the "bellowing storm" within its own barrier.
The dazzling and perilous claims of the Rights of Man in the abstract, have had a long and ample discussion before the sanguinary tribunals of another country; and the loud decree of an indignant and insulted world has pronounced their eternal doom. Other contests may arise; but the powers of a prophet are not necessary to assert, that such rights will form no part of their provocation.
In France, I was repeatedly asked my opinion of the probable stability of the peace. The question was always addressed in this rather curious shape: "Thank God, we have peace! Will your country let us enjoy it?"—My answer was, "You may be assured of it; for it will not cease to be prepared for war."
Alas! the restless spirit of ambition seldom long delights in repose. The peaceful virtues, under whose influence Nations flourish and mankind rejoice, possess no lasting captivations for the Hero. The draught of conquest maddens his brain, and excites an insatiable thirst for fresh atchievements—He
"Looks into the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend"——
May that extraordinary Being in whose hands the fate of millions is deposited reverse the gloomy picture, and restore to a country long wasted by revolutions, and warfare, and languishing in the midst of the monuments of her glory, the benign blessings of enduring tranquillity. But if this hope prove fruitless, if all the countries of continental Europe are destined to be compressed into one empire, if their devoted princes are doomed to adorn the triumphs of the chief of that mighty republic, which now towers above the surrounding nations of the earth, like the pyramid of the desert, what have we to fear even though the ocean which divides us should become the soldiers element?
When an enlightened frenchman is asked what he thinks of his government, his answer is, "We want repose." For this alone, a stranger to the recent occurrences of the world would think he had toiled, just as valetudinarians take exercise for the purpose of securing sleep. Even those who have profited of eleven years of desolation, are ready to acknowledge that war is not pastime, and that a familiarity with its horrours does not lessen them. The soldier, drooping under the weight of booty, pants for the refreshing shades of his native village, and for the hour which is to restore him to his alienated family.
I am satisfied, that both in France and England, one desire pervades all classes of people, that two nations, so brave, and so worthy of reciprocal esteem, may at last grow wise and virtuous enough to abstain from those ebullitions of furious hostility which have stained so many centuries with blood.